Home
by Sunsoarer
Summary: The Enterprise is returning home, five years after she began her first real mission: to go where no one has gone before. But where is home for a child of two worlds and the woman he cannot leave behind? Mild M.
1. Chapter 1

Note: Spock is a bit OOC in this. It's a bit of a drabble/experiment I came up with after seeing the movie again today and really paying attention to Spock. There is some M content, but it's mild.

Live long and prosper.

******

"Spock," Uhura says quietly in the otherwise-empty, softly-beeping bridge. "When are we home?"

Spock raises a slanted eyebrow, dark eyes watching her. "I am not sure what you infer by 'home', Lieutenant."

"Stop, Spock," she replies, on the edge of exasperation. "Just stop."

"I believe you asked me a question?"

Uhura is too tired, too bone-weary to reply. She's been on the Enterprise for five years; five years without a real day off, five years without the sun, five years without real ground beneath her feet, five years without sunrises or sunsets. They are at warp, returning at last to Earth, and all she wants to know was _when_ and why did he have to be such a goddamned ass about it?

"Uhura?" He was suddenly behind her, a hand on her shoulder.

"Spock," she says, defeated. "I just want to go home."

"I..." He pauses, not wanting to rouse her ire again. "Where is home?"

She glances up at him, expecting a mechanical measure of time, not his gentle query. "Africa," she replies after a long moment. "Home, home, at least; my country."

"I see," he muses. "Do—you wish to return there?"

"Eventually. I have few fond memories of home."

Spock takes his hand off of her shoulder. "Yet you still call it 'home'?"

"I suppose I have no choice. I feel... unbalanced, like I have no home."

"Like I do not," he whispers, so quietly he thought she could not hear.

"Oh, Spock," she says, heart aching. They've been fighting; well, as much as a Vulcan ever fights. Her mind has steeled against him for now, but her heart has no such defense. Slowly, she stands, and reaches for his hand; he looks down at where they are joined and slowly finds her face, his eyes clouded. "Oh, Spock."

"Uhura," he replies, voice almost shaken. "This is... not logical."

She drops his hand like a firebrand and steps back. She fights to keep her voice down; it would do no good to lure security, but all she wants to do is shout, to scream, to yell and cry and hurt. "For crying out loud! To hell with logic! Haven't you gotten it already? Five years, Spock, more than that, and you still hold your hobgoblin _logic_ closer than my heart?"

Spock does not falter when Bones hisses that word, nor when Jim tosses it towards him in casual conversation; but when Uhura, his Uhura, says it, and so bitterly, he feels the wound, feels it bleed. She knows she struck him.

"Uhura, I am..." Spock closes his eyes and turns away from her. She knows he is hiding from her. "I _am_ who I am. I _am_ Vulcan as much as I _am_ human. I am half logical, half emotional—_you _brought that out of me after I spent my life, my _life_, trying to become... someone I am only partly." He spins around and looks at her, eyes screaming his pain, jaw clenched against it. "I fight. Every day of my life is a fight. I fight to maintain camaraderie with Jim, to be commander to the others, to be Vulcan for my father, to be human for my mother. I fight to love you, Nyota. I fight to think of my future on a planet I do not know, to be first officer on a ship I know better than a world, now—"

Uhura has stopped listening. She could hear his pain, but the only thing she hears now of his tirade was one phrase; one six-word phrase. _"I fight to love you, Nyota."_ It repeats, like a malfunctioning con message, over and over. She is looking down when she realizes Spock is no longer speaking. "Nyota?"

She looks up at him, eyes bright. "Spock—I—you—you _love_ me?"

He closes his eyes for a long moment, then looks at her softly with those eyes she so adores. "I thought you knew." She tightens her mouth, settles for a half nod, half shake, and shrugs. She doesn't know what she feels. She doesn't know if her voice can be trusted, if her breath can be trusted. "Oh, Nyota," he murmurs and steps towards her, hesitant if she will accept him now. She can see in his shoulders that he wants to hold her, and she closes her eyes and nods, the tiniest nod, and Spock holds her, holds her so tightly she never wants him to let go.

He feels. He feels her; he feels her pain, his pain, her need, his need, her humanity, his tumultuous being, but her love; her love is overwhelming. He feels so much he feels numb. He feels until he feels nothing at all, until all of the _feel_ is like pain that fades as long as he doesn't move; so he doesn't, holding his Nyota, nose buried in her hair, her fists gripping his shirt. They stand that way until the numbness fades and he feels again: feels dampness against his shirt, feels her breath hiccup against his arms.

"Nyota? My love?" he whispers, so softly he can hardly hear; but she, his xenolinguistics expert, his student, his lieutenant, his Uhura, his Nyota, his love, can hear. He knows she can hear because he feels her heart stammer against his chest.

"Spock," she mumbles against his chest. "Oh, Spock."

It is all she can say for some time as he tips her chin up from her listening of his heartbeat and kisses every tear off her cheeks, her chin, her nose, her lips, where they've run down her neck. She does not return his kisses at first; but he knows the overwhelming numbness and waits for her to come to him, understanding now, and she attacks his mouth with her own with a fury he did not know she possessed.

Kirk looks in the bridge from the officer's lounge where he has been napping, smiles, then closes all doors to the bridge and lets them have their peace.

Spock cushions her fall as she slides down against him, giving in to her exhaustion, her countless nights spent by herself, alone, so, so alone without her angled eyebrows to trace and pointy ears to caress, and so when he gently suggests their impropriety by slipping one hand from her knee to hip, she finds herself reaching for him. When he gets the necessary fabric shifted, she realizes his fingers are questing for her pleasure; one set held firmly in her hand, the other teasing over her skin on the floor just in front of Kirk's beloved chair.

When she begs with her eyes, he pauses. She begins to ask why. Suddenly, she sees what he is doing; he is trying for her—trying so hard to feel.

Slowly, they couple, alone in the otherwise-empty, softly-beeping bridge; for the first time he lets himself experience her reactions and lets her learn his. He does not stifle his murmured groan as she envelops him; he does not calm his breath. When she begins to clutch his arms, his shoulders, trying to bring his lips to hers, he kisses her roughly, bruising. He is not the quiet, almost dutiful lovemaker she has seen before.

Suddenly, he pauses, sucking in air through his nose, nostrils flaring as he wrestles with something. "Nyota?" he says finally, hesitantly. Spock is not hesitant. "May I?" He reaches out with one hand towards the left side of her face, a finger by her chin and the rest along her cheek and forehead. She knows what he wants.

Nodding, she lets him touch her in the pattern required, and suddenly he is with her in her mind. He begins to rock again, in her body and in her mind, and the overwhelming doubles—no, quadruples, for she feels his too—and sends her away from the bridge, somewhere else; before she warps away, she feels his need for her. Now—immediately—but forever, too, and there it is. A stray thought he quickly tugs away, but she's seen it, and she's amazed as she floats inside her blood.

He buries his face in her shoulder to pillow his cries, knowing she is too far gone to hear him anyway, and when she finally looks at him coherently again, he knows she saw. They straighten up; almost off-duty, they don't care. Not anymore.

Kirk does, however, from his hiding place in the officer's lounge. He knows the sounds of sex too well to ignore it. There is no way out of the lounge but through. He retreats to a couch and begins thinking of every non-arousing thing he can... and then decides to wait.

"Spock?" Nyota has finished with the remaining transmissions and she looks up at her commander, her teacher, her Spock, her love, in the otherwise-empty, softly-beeping bridge. "When are we home?"

"Three-point-seven hours, my sweet," he replies, the endearment a whisper. It's a new one; he feels it's justified, likes how it rolls off his tongue, how it feels when her brilliant return smile rumbles in his chest. He does not raise a slanted eyebrow at her query. Now he knows; now he understands.

"Where are you going when we get there?"

He takes a deep breath; for once illogical, he takes a chance. "I wish to go where you go, Nyota." He pauses; she waits too. "My home... it is with you."

She lets a smile tug at her lips, still rough from his kisses, and stands, reaches for his hands; holds them close to her chest and to his. She thinks of what she saw, looks down at their twenty combined fingers, lets one stray finger brush over the third on his left hand. He rests his forehead against hers and does the same, not even pausing to consider the Earth custom that it was. He knows, now, what she'll say when he inevitably asks; all the important questions, still left unsaid, were answered without a word. When Kirk clears his throat uncomfortably behind them, she throws her arms around her Spock's neck and kisses him, lingering.

"Can I have my chair back?"

Spock lets her lips go, looks at his captain, but it is Uhura who says quietly, "Yes, Jim. Are we relieved?"

"Yes," he replies, taking in the gravity of what else happened. "And I am too. Go home."

Spock and Uhura look at each other again. She knows; she understands. "I am home," she murmurs softly, and Spock smiles; then Jim smiles; then Nyota smiles, and as the pair of fools stroll out of the bridge, Jim watches them go and returns his mind to the last three-point-five hours of the life he's known.

Jim smiles again, and in the otherwise-empty, softly-beeping bridge, he relishes the knowledge that he, too, will be able to finally go home.


	2. Chapter 2

You people got me to write another... this is set several weeks after the first chapter.

I'm still playing with the idea that Spock is tentatively making nice with his human side, so he's OOC in the movie's playground... but not in mine ;)

Enjoy. I hope my tense usage doesn't throw you off too much. The single asterisks just mark a change in pace or POV... doesn't like my extra line breaks. Double asterisks are an event in the past, although it should be clear.

*******

Spock lets Uhura drag him through the bustling market, the chatters of many languages almost too many for his fine-tuned ears to handle. She has his hand held tightly in hers, squeezing every so often to make sure he is paying attention. He's uncomfortable in this market; it's mostly populated with humans who stare at his ears and eyebrows and haircut.

Suddenly, she slows down, and he nearly stumbles into her before he sees their destination: the side street off of the market, where the humans stop and the aliens begin. Here he is a little more normal: he doesn't see any Vulcans around, but other foreigners are generally kinder to their own, and these languages are ones he knows. He relaxes, smiles, and in the calmer sea of alien culture, they can walk side by side.

They have a destination. He watches her eyes, watches as she laughs, tries not to consider sweeping her up in his arms and ravishing her lips right there in the street. The thought makes his inner human grin and his inner Vulcan be as impassive as ever; but these days, on Earth, he is modulating between the two. Earth is his home now, and even to his Vulcan side it is logical that he try to relate to humans.

Uhura slows and starts looking more carefully at the market stalls. She has some hare-brained scheme involving cooking Vulcan cuisine for him tonight. (He's secretly proud of the new human phrase coming to mind so easily.) With Vulcan gone, he's not sure how she'll manage, but she says she has it under control, and he lets her believe it. The thought of his home planet still hurts, but Uhura's kisses are the most healing tonic he's ever known.

She looks back at him, smiles as if she's heard his thoughts, and then begins speaking rapidly in Vulcan to a vendor; she's found her elusive market stall. Spock senses no danger and glances around him to the other shops and vendors, finding the whole experience eclectic. A small stand selling jewelry catches his eye, and he finds his legs moving in that direction. The vendor raises his eyes upon seeing a Vulcan approach, then nods his head and greets him in that language somberly before beginning to speak in broken English.

Spock quickly identifies his race, offers to speak to him in his native language, and the smiling vendor asks what he's shopping for.

"A gift," Spock says, after a moment.

"For a lady?" the vendor replies.

"Yes."

"The lady you strolled here with?" The vendor seems to remind him disturbingly of Jim when he attempts to be politely womanizing, and Spock stiffens slightly; the vendor quickly covers his indiscretion. "I'm just wondering, sir, because if she is the lady you're buying for, something green would match her eyes, and I have some lovely pieces with a rare African greenstone—"

Spock's eyebrow raises at that. "African, you say?"

"Yes, sir, I import it myself and create the settings." The vendor shuffles to a corner, motioning Spock to come with him. After seeing that Uhura was discussing items with another vendor, the Vulcan came to look at what the alien vendor had to sell, and his eyes fell upon a ring. "Ah—that one, you like it? A very traditional setting, made with diamonds too; artificial ones now, of course, but the greenstone is straight from the ground. Not much of it left." The vendor plucks the ring out of the holder and offers it to his customer.

Spock holds the ring in his hand, feeling it dwarfed in his palm; but he knows Uhura's hands to be delicate. He remembers that evening shift on the bridge, so close to Earth, when she saw his closest-held desires. He hasn't mentioned them, and neither has she, but perhaps that time has come.

"Any jeweler can resize it, sir," the vendor says quietly to the reminiscing Spock, "if they have the tools and gold."

Spock is suddenly determined and does not even bother haggling on the price. With the ring boxed and pocketed, he returns to his Uhura, and with their own secret purchases held closely, they leave the market for home.

*

Uhura sees Spock conversing quickly with a vendor on the other side of the street; he seems to be selling trinkets, and she's wondering what has drawn her Vulcan's eye. He is not one for frivolous things.

She, however, has a softness for them, and when she finds a shopkeeper selling a clothing item she could certainly classify as frivolous, she finds a perfect use for it in her mind. The cloth is soft; it's cut in an ancient style—she can't identify the culture, although the seller claims it was one of Earth's many islands—and she buys it with hardly a second thought. She takes the bag from the vendor, thanking him for his business, and Spock reappears, one hand uncharacteristically in his pocket, the other resting on her lower back. He does not offer to take her purchases, and she is glad; he should know by now she won't agree.

They sway out of the market together, mingling through the humans that crowd the entrance, and return to their ground-based form of transportation. Spock has the keys, she remembers, and they are quiet as they drive, musing over what surprises they have for each other.

Uhura smiles, as always, as they arrive at the little building they call "home". It is a far cry from the _Enterprise_, but it is theirs; for now, at least. Starfleet has a handful of these little buildings for officers on extended breaks, not too far from the Academy. The only downside that this little house has is that Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy live next door; they'd heard them shouting when Bones discovered Kirk moving in his small belongings. Apparently, there was a fluke in the Starfleet computers leading to the mix-up, but the two of them had settled during the week it took Starfleet to locate an appropriate lodging for Kirk and even seem to enjoy the other's company, now, as long as Kirk keeps the women out.

There was no such computer glitch that sent Spock and Uhura to live in the same house: Spock had quietly gone to Admiral Pike and asked for her lodgings to be transferred to his, and one day Uhura returned to find a new woman unpacking her things and a quietly contented Spock carrying the last box out of her standard-issue room. She'd spent the next afternoon moving Spock's things out of the tiny room he'd moved into and back into the bedroom; _their_ bedroom. She shivers as she remembers that first night.

**

He's been at the Academy all day, working with students, and he is tired. Uhura is waiting for him, and as he walks in the door, she gets up from her seat and goes to him. "Spock?"

"I am weary, Uhura," he replies without preamble.

"There is food, if you want it," she says quietly. He looks at her, and she can see his hunger. "Sit?"

He does, and she pulls a salad out of the fridge. By know she knows what he likes and how he likes it, and he gratefully eats as they sit in silence. He finishes, takes his plate to the sink, rinses it, and puts it in the cleaner with the others.

"I'm going to bed," Uhura says with a smile. He observes she's hiding something. Too tired to concern himself with it, he drops a kiss on her lips. "Sleep well. I need to organize my thoughts."

"Very well." She leaves without bidding him goodnight, and he is curious now, but goes to his office to sort his things and mind. When he feels adequately calmed for slumber, he makes his way to the little closet to find it empty.

"This must be what she is smiling about," he murmurs, then wonders where she may have taken his belongings. Even the floor is calling to his aching body now; too many nights with a mere hour's catnap are adding up.

"Looking for something?" Uhura is behind him, and he tenses momentarily, startled. He turns to see her standing there in a flimsy robe and, he deduces, not much else. "It's human nightwear, Spock, you can stop staring. I admit I am glad you like it, though."

"I do hope you did not wear only that around your prior roommate?" His mouth is dry.

She chuckles. "No, but seeing as you happen to be my 'roommate' now, I think it's alright."

He sighs heavily, fighting his body's impulses of sleep and lust. "I need to sleep, Nyota. Where are my things?" She simply takes his hand and walks with him down the hall where the bedroom is.

"Why did you move them?" she asks as he enters the room behind her. "I should have thought you would be willing to share with me, of all people." He realizes belatedly that she's teasing.

"I do not know. It seemed logical at the time." He glances up just in time to see her shed the thin robe and slip between the blankets wearing only a similarly flimsy top and a bit of cream-colored lace. Suddenly, finding his own sleepwear is difficult, but he manages. Some minutes later he follows Uhura under the blanket and is asleep within moments, his exhausted mind demanding rest.

When she shifts herself carefully into his embrace, he reflexively wraps his arms loosely around her; when she awakens a few hours later to his kisses over her shoulders and his maleness against her thigh, she realizes how glad she is to be home.

**

"You are smiling, Nyota," he says to her as she puts her bagful of purchases on the counter in the tiny kitchen.

"Am I?" she says. "I suppose I am." He looks confused. "I am happy, Spock," she informs him quietly. "So very, very happy."

He too smiles in his own way. She feels again that flush through her skin that reminds her why she loves him so.

*

She's been cooking for a while now, he realizes as he pauses in his lesson plans for a break. He slips his hand into his pocket to fiddle with the box there. He felt an overwhelming need to present it to her; perhaps before he lost his nerve, as humans said.

"Spock?" He hears her voice floating from the kitchen. "Come check this, please?"

He sets aside his work for the evening, determined to enjoy it, and gets up to attend to his wife in the kitchen.

Where did that come from? Wife? He realizes his mind slipped for a moment and at last acknowledged his wish. It felt comforting to have that word there in his mind: _wife_. He holds the box in his fist, still safely in his pocket, and then tastes the offered soup. She has added something, made it slightly different than the original, he realizes, and compliments her skill. They are just serving the food into plates and bowls for themselves when Jim Kirk cheerily opens the unlocked front door, a scowling Bones a few steps behind.

"Food! I hope we're invited?"

"How did you have any idea, Jim?"

"Saw you come home earlier, thought we'd stop by and at least say hello to our neighbors..."

"He saw you cooking," Bones corrects.

Spock, bemused, simply retrieves another set of dishes, and Uhura tells the captain to set the table and asks Bones to retrieve drinks out of the cooling unit. Jim wonders what's in to Spock today; no anger when they interrupted what he suspected was to be a romantic dinner, not even a word about it, and he realizes that the Vulcan is playing with something in his pocket. Most unlike him to be fiddling.

They eat in camaraderie, complimenting Uhura's cooking; even Bones leaves off his gruff manner for the impromptu evening and makes an effort. When Kirk and Bones leave an hour and a half later, dishes rinsed and ready for cleaning, Spock stays Uhura's clearing hands.

"The table can wait," he says quietly; the food is put away, and the placemats really can linger. "Come with me?" Uhura is curious and does as he requests. He steps outside on to the tiny patio with the little flowerbed, hoping fervently that Kirk and Bones were inside finishing off their meal with alcohol and not by peeking out their windows.

"We're supposed to be ready for duty anytime after July," he says quietly, taking a moment to remember the old Earth name for the month. Uhura quickly calculates.

"Two months from now?"

"Yes," he says, and looks at her, eyes soft and full of something she can't describe. "I like this—these living arrangements."

"You mean having Jim and Bones next door?" She is only half-teasing.

"Nyota," he says, raising an eyebrow. "I mean with you. You do not know what it means to me to wake every morning to your face and not have to sneak away."

"I think I might have an idea," she says quietly, and wonders if he has been thinking about what they both saw that night on the _Enterprise_.

"Nyota... this is illogical for me, and I am a little unfamiliar with this, but..." Spock takes a slow breath and pulls the box out of his pocket. He does not kneel—does not feel it appropriate, somehow, for his Nyota. He makes himself remain calm, trying not to prepare for her rejection of his gift. "I would like you to have this, if you would take it?"

He opens the little box, and nestled inside is the ring, the greenstone flanked by a pair of tiny diamonds held in tendrils of gold. It's simple, subtle, but so very Nyota and so very Spock. Her eyes sprout tears, and he wipes them away from her smooth cheek; when she offers her left hand, he pulls the ring out of the box and slides it on to her finger.

"Spock," she says, surprisingly calm for her tears. "Thank you. I will. Oh, Spock, I will."

It's the unanswered question she knew he'd ask and he knew she'd answer that way; they'd known since the _Enterprise_ finally returned home.

*

Later that night, when they are slowly cooling from their slow, treasured lovemaking, Nyota rests her ringed hand against Spock's cheek. He feels the coolness against her fingers acutely and remembers it, tucks it away for later.

"I love you, Spock," she says quietly.

"I know, Nyota," he replies, and kisses her gently. "I love you, too."

"I know."

"I am most glad." She can see he truly is glad; his face gives his emotions away. She remembers the garment she bought today, the loose, one-shouldered dress, and decides she will find a good use for it... she has the feeling her husband-to-be would find the expanse of her skin too alluring to ignore.

Tomorrow was Sunday, as they call it on Earth, after all.


End file.
